NOTE: The beginning of Karen's history has been presented in the Introduction.
“That experience with the prostitute in London really turned me on. After I flew home and had to go back to work in that stupid office, I just couldn't help thinking about it. It was really weird. But it was also frustrating in other ways, too. I couldn't talk about it to anybody. The whole thing was just too queer. I thought a little of going to a shrink, but I was afraid they'd cart me off to the looney bin, and, anyway, the whole thing was much too embarrassing and disgusting to tell anybody, even a psychiatrist. Anyway, I didn't go.
“I also thought of moving to New York. The city where I live is sort of medium-size, not quite big enough to be completely anonymous or to have enough freaky people. I thought a little of switching jobs and moving to Greenwich Village. I might meet somebody there like me.
“But then there was this other problem. It took me a long time to admit to myself that I got more of a charge out of being worked over by another woman than by a fellow. There were these fellows I mentioned earlier, my cousin, especially, and the times he stuck his wienie up my fanny when I was a kid. It still gets me really excited when I remember that, how it felt, and everything. But mostly I remember that time in London when the prostitute gave it to me back there with the dildoe. That was the best that had happened to me up until then. That meant I was a lesbian, and it really bothered me to have to admit that to myself. Maybe I'm bisexual, which isn't quite so bad. But I think that bisexual is almost the same as being homosexual. It's funny, but the homosexual part bothers me more than the fact that I'm queer that other way, too, that I want something up my rear and not the regular way. I've come to terms with it all since, though. I am what I am, and that's it.
“Anyway, I didn't move into New York but stayed here, and the longer I went the more frustrated I got. I wanted to repeat what happened in London, and I wanted to find another woman. I wanted a 'butch' to work me over, a strong dominant woman who would assault me anally and I wanted her to like it just as much as me. It couldn't be just a prostitute like in London. It had to be something real, something that I could share with another person.
“One day I happened to pick up one of those racy weekly papers, you know the kind that have freaky headlines like Dad Rapes Five-Year-Old Daughter. I don't think I'd have had nerve enough to buy one, but there was one lying on the seat of the bus and I just stuffed it into my purse when nobody was looking.
“When I got home I looked at it, just out of curiosity, and discovered that there were two pages of ads in it, a lot like the ones I'd seen in London, not ads from prostitutes, or at least they weren't supposed to be, but from freaky people and lonely people. I thought about those ads a lot, and finally decided to put one in myself. I decided that if an answer came I could just make up my mind what to do. No one would know anything about it.
“I didn't put the ad in right off, but I thought about it a lot. Finally, I wanted someone so bad that I just decided to plunge and see what happened. I wrote a little ad in which I said:
Young lady, dark-brown hair, brown eyes, five foot four, usually considered attractive would like to meet dominant woman. I am very submissive.
I put a dollar in the envelope like the instructions said and sent it to the paper to their Miss F-.
The ad didn't come out for quite a while. I got up nerve to buy the darned papers, though not at the place I usually get my magazines, and for three weeks I waited for it to appear. Finally, it did. There was my name and the name of the city and also a number. At first I wished I hadn't done it. Suppose somebody should find out. But I decided that that was stupid, because how could they?
“Well, then, after about a week, letters started coming in. I guess about fifteen came in all, most of them from men. I don't suppose there are many young women who put ads in these things. I just threw away the ones from men. Most of the ones from women weren't too satisfactory either. A couple of them were from fairly old women, forty-five or so, and one of the ones that came from younger ones talked about flagellation, which isn't really my thing. Two of the others were just from girls who were lonely. I felt sorry for them, but I didn't think they were what I was looking for.
“There was this one note, though, that I had a funny feeling about. The girl who wrote it said she was twenty-seven, and that she lived in New York. The letter really didn't say much, but it was a nice letter, and the handwriting was nice. From the words she used and all that, I was pretty sure that she was sort of refined, probably been to college, or at least was decently educated.
“I just couldn't write about what I'm like, and I didn't really have much idea what she was like from her letter, but I decided to take a chance and phone her. She gave me her phone number.
“'I'm calling from…,' I said on the phone. 'And it's about a letter I got.'
“'What letter is that?' she asked in a sort of suspicious tone of voice.
“'You said you were twenty-seven and firm but gentle…
“'Are you going to answer my letter?'
“'I–I thought maybe we might have lunch together or something in New York.'
“'All right,' she said.
“We made the date. I would take the bus to New York, Saturday and she would meet me at the bus terminal. Then we'd go someplace together for lunch and to get acquainted, and just take it from there. She had signed her note 'A Friend' and we decided that we wouldn't exchange names or anything like that until we'd gotten together.
“I could hardly wait for Saturday. It was really going to be an adventure. But, finally, it came. I put on my prettiest skirt, put a few things in an overnight bag, just in case, and caught the 8:17 for the city.
“'Hi,' she said when I got off the bus. I'd told her what I'd be wearing. It's easy for girls to get together. Nobody suspects. She was very pretty, taller than me, with long black hair, and dark eyes, slender. I'd hoped she would be pretty and she was.
“She looked at me sort of funny, and I could tell from the way she looked at me that she liked what she saw. I was glad about that, too, of course, although I'm conceited enough to think I didn't have to worry.
“We took a cab to the Village and to one of those little cafes that are sort of quiet, dark and intimate, a place where we could talk and feel easy. She made all the decisions, which was just the way I wanted it.
“Anyway, we started talking, and pretty soon she told me her name was Eileen and I said I was Karen. She was an art teacher at a college and had her own apartment over on the West Side. We talked about art and stuff, and a little bit about travel. She goes to Europe every summer. But both of us were sort of shy about getting into what we both knew was pounding away in our minds. I decided, though, if she was really a 'butch' she'd bring up anything and make all the advances.
“'How about coming up to my apartment for drinks?' she asked after we'd wandered around a gallery awhile. We spent some time poking around in those little galleries looking at new shows. Eileen knew her way around and most of the directors seemed to know her. Not a word was said about sex, and I really wondered if I was on the wrong track, but at that point I didn't care because I just liked her for herself now anyway. It was hard to imagine anybody like her being lonely; she was so pretty and also had a really charming personality. But if she really was lesby that would explain it, maybe.
“Finally we ended up at her apartment. It was really beautiful. She had to have a lot of money to furnish it the way she did, more than she could have earned as an art teacher. I soon found out that I was right about that part. Her family was rich and she'd gone to some pretty fancy schools.
“We had those drinks, dinner together later toward evening; all that time neither of us said anything about sex, and she made no advances or anything. It was just as if we had been old friends.
“But after dinner things started to happen. Eileen turned the lights down low and we settled down on her davenport to watch her color TV. She sat close to me and after a while I felt her arm around my shoulder. Instead of brushing it away or anything I just sort of snuggled, just let myself go. That was the signal. Gently and very slowly, she started reaching down toward my breasts with her fingers. I leaned against her and closed my eyes. I decided to just let her do everything, just let whatever was going to happen happen. It was nice. Pretty soon I was sort of lying in her arms and she was fondling my breasts and kissing me and running her hands over my thighs, the way a fellow would, but I liked it much better when she did it. I really loved what she was doing and I just let her go on, all the while dying to know what she was going to do with me. Something was going to happen.
“The news came on and the late show started.
“'Let's go to bed,' she whispered.
“It was the first thing she'd said since we'd started necking. I was really hot by then, just dying to have her attack me in the rear, but I decided that if she didn't, if she chose to do something else, I'd just go along with it.
“She showed me where the bath was and I had my shower and put on my short nightgown, one of those filmy things you can see through. When I came out pink and gleaming from the bath, she just devoured me with her eyes; the way she stared at me just about made me into a wild woman, but I was good and controlled myself.
“Finally we were in bed together, just lying there like husband and wife, in the dark, with the gleam of the luminous dial of her clock the only thing that you could see. She started making love to me again.
“First she kissed me all over and fondled my breasts like she had before, then she started working down lower and gently massaged my thighs. It was a real titillating sensation. I just surrendered to it and let it all happen. My body was aflame. Oh, how I wanted her to penetrate me. I hoped she had a dildoe. She just had to.
“Then she started sucking my breasts, licking them and tickling the nipples with the tip of her tongue.
“'Ohhh, Eileen,' I moaned. 'Ohhhhhh!' I just couldn't keep from moaning it was so nice. Then she started giving me what I think is called a trip around the world. She started working her tongue over my breasts, which were hard as could be, and then she worked down over me until she was down between my thighs. She licked and licked me down there, tickled me with her tongue, titillated my clitoris and rolled me over and tongued my anus. I just kept moaning and moaning. I was in ecstasy. It was hard to get my breath, I was so excited. Oh, it was wonderful. But I still wanted her to penetrate me. This oral stuff is okay for preliminaries, but for me, anyway, it isn't the real thing. I wanted something up my bottom, but, wild as I was, I couldn't ask her for a thing. I just loved being completely submissive. If it happened it happened.
“She got up from the bed and went to her bureau drawer and I heard her fumbling in the dark. I hoped she was getting a dildoe. She was. When she came back and climbed into bed with me I could feel it. It was strapped onto her just like on the prostitute in London. Oh boy, I was going to get it now, but I just hoped she'd stick it up my rear. I was willing to take it the other way, but I really wanted it in the rear.
“She went on caressing me and sliding my nightie up. Then she rolled on top of me and Started working the dildoe into my vagina. I was trembling all over. It was nice. It hurt, but it was nice. I was glad that-because of an accident when I was a kid-there was no hymen to break. But I was also sort of disappointed, because, to me, doing it vaginally is really nothing. She pushed it up me and started screwing. I pretended that I liked it more than I actually did, but you can't pretend a thing like that. She knew, although she didn't say anything. Anyway, after a while she withdrew it, and then what I'd been hoping all along would happen did.
“Without saying anything at all she rolled me over on my side, and I sort of drew up my legs. I thought she was probably going to go on screwing me the regular way, but instead, and to my delight, I felt the dildoe start working up my rectum. I gasped.
“'Like it?'
“'Oh yes.'
“'Better than the other way?'
“'Yes-s-s-s-s-s!'
“As we were saying that, she was very gently pressing it through my anus and right into my rectum. I could hardly stand it, it felt so good. I must be really queer. I don't seem to feel much of anything in front, but back there it just drives me wild. She worked it in very slowly, very slowly. I closed my eyes and relaxed, which was pretty hard, and just let it push on up in. All the while, she kept massaging my breasts, and running her hands up and down my thighs, and kissing me and everything, making love to me, like she was a man and I was her mistress. No man would ever make love like she did.
“Her dildoe was a little bigger than the one the prostitute had used on me in London, but I just surrendered to it. It hurt at first. It hurt like mad, almost like I was being torn apart. But, you know, I like that sensation. I wouldn't like it to last too long, but it's sort of nice to be hurt a little. But after it was in, I got used to it. It felt very big in me. Then she poked it up higher. It's pretty long, about nine inches, which is as long as a rather hefty penis, I guess. It can go in quite a long way. She kept working it in and working it in until it was all the way up. Then she started screwing me. We both worked together on that. I pressed back and pushed back and she pushed forward, and it slid in and out and in and out. It's hard to push it in and out at first. My rectum was so tight, but the more you do it the easier it gets. The sphincter muscles relax, I think. And after she had been pumping me quite a few times I began to feel this absolutely delicious sensation sweep over me, a real congestion that grew in me. It was much more intense than that time in London or any of the other times when I fooled around.
“'Ohhhhhh, Eileen!' I cried. I just couldn't stop from crying out. She kept saying, 'Honey, honey, honey, honey,' over and over again in this real cooing voice. It really turned me on. Then, when she plunged it up me right up to the hilt, all the way through my rectum, I came. And boy did I come. I trembled and wriggled and wiggled all over, moaned and groaned. It was just about the most terrific experience I'd ever had in my whole life. I've never tried LSD, or any of that stuff, but I'm sure that none of it could send me like Eileen did with that dildoe up my bottom.
“We both came. We were panting and shaking all over. I really fell in love with her right then. She was just about a perfect stranger, but I knew that from now on I was hers and she could do just about anything with me she wanted. I just wanted to stay with her and be near her, and make her happy and everything. I loved her. I loved her like a woman loves a man. But I knew now that I could never love a man that way, and that I was really a homosexual. I was a lesbian and there was no fooling about any of that.
“We were both exhausted after that go. We took turns showering and she got me another nightie. Mine was just soaking from sweat. After we got back in bed, all we did was go off to sleep.
“Next morning, pretty early, I was dreaming that someone was working a dildoe up me, and as I gradually started to waken I found out it was true.
Someone was. I went to sleep lying on my side and Eileen was screwing me, very gently sliding it all the way in. Oh, it was nice. I just let myself go, and it was just wonderful to have this drowsy sleepy feeling and have that happen. It wasn't ecstatic like the night before, but just sweet and comfortable. I just let her go on doing it.
“'You really like getting it back there, don't you, honey?' she said while we were doing the breakfast dishes.
“'Uh-huh.'
“I still felt sort of embarrassed about the whole thing. It's so queer. I mean, I don't really mind doing it. I love it. But talking about it sort of gets me up tight. That's funny, isn't it?
“We kept off sex the rest of the day. Neither of us mentioned it at all. We went to the Metropolitan Art Museum and spent the whole afternoon there, then we had dinner in a swank restaurant, spent some time on Fifth Avenue in places like Saks, and I bought some new clothes. Eileen just absolutely insisted on that. She made me get them, picked them out, in fact, and bought them. I found I just loved having her make decisions and do things for me. It wasn't like a mother doing it, or an older sister; well, maybe it could be something like that. It was really more like being taken care of by a very gentle man. Yet, there's absolutely nothing mannish in the way Eileen looks and the way she acts. I mean, she's really very feminine in appearance. She's beautiful. I think she's much prettier than me with that long dark hair, and her figure is gorgeous, too. Her clothes are very chic. But she likes to take care of people. She gets something out of that. She likes the protective bit, likes running people's lives, some would say, and, above all, she adores doing things to me that give me pleasure.
“I discovered that I really liked being submissive. I hadn't known before that I did. In fact, I'd always thought of myself as being sort of an independent type. But, boy, was I wrong about that part. I love to lean. I really do. Where sex is concerned, I just love to let Eileen do everything; I want her to decide when we do it, and for her to do absolutely everything and for me to be completely passive and submissive. I like to have her undress me, penetrate me, do everything. And she's the opposite. She likes me to be submissive. She likes to do everything; she gets a real bang out of that. So I'm glad she answered that ad because we're just meant for each other. We're perfect. We couldn't be more perfect if we were an ideally matched husband and wife.
“But I have to tell what happened when we came back to her apartment. We had a few drinks and stuff, and then she started going into this other mood, started acting very stern and bossy. She also started scolding me, but in a peculiar sort of way. It was more like she was acting out something, like we were in a play.
“How it started was like this. We were doing the dishes. Eileen washed, and I dried. One of the cups was slippery with soap, fell out of my hands and smashed.
“'You clumsy bitch,' she snarled. 'Now you're going to get it!'
“'I… I'm sorry,' I whimpered.
“'Sorry? Well, I'll give you something to make you sorry!'
“I found myself trembling all over when she said that, but it wasn't from fright, and it wasn't because I thought Eileen was really mad at me. It was different. It was just like it was when she did me with the dildoe.
“Suddenly she produced this birch. I don't know where it came from. We were right there in the kitchen.
“'All right,' she said savagely, 'now you're going to get it. Pull up your dress, take down your panties, and bend over.'
“'Oh no, Eileen, please, please, I won't do it again!' I felt like a little girl again, like I did when Mom paddled me on the bare bottom. I'd forgotten about those times. I was all excited.
“'Go on,' she said, 'pull up your dress.'
“Right there in the kitchen, I did as she said. I pulled up my skirt, way up above my waist, slid down my panties, and bent over on the counter. My bottom felt so bare, and it was so humiliating. I blushed and blushed, and all the time I felt humiliated and was blushing I just enjoyed it.
Swoosh! She stung me on the backside and I yelped. It burned like mad. It hurt, and I mean it really hurts, but I liked it. Swish! Swish! Swish! Swish!
” 'Oh, Eileen, please, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts!' I wailed. I sobbed and wriggled my bottom.
“'Are you going to do that again?'
“'No, Eileen, no, please, please, please don't!'
“She was driving me wild. My pussy was just dripping. Oh, it was painful and sweet all at the same time. Swish! Swish! Swish! Swish! Boy, what a spanking she gave me!
“I was really crying, and I'm not fooling one bit when I say it hurt, because it did. But the funny thing about the whole thing was that I knew that she wasn't really mad at all and that she was actually loving me this way, and that as much as it hurt I really dug it. I've read about masochists, and I know about this flagellation stuff, but, again, I'd never thought I was one of those. I must really be queer. I seem to like just about everything that's way out. But I guess that's the way I am, though.
“What happened after the spanking was really a gas. Eileen led me into the bedroom, making me keep holding my dress up. Then she sat down on the bed and drew me over her lap so that my-bare bottom was right there in front of her. On the way in I got a glimpse of my ass in the mirror and it was all red and streaked, and, somehow, that got me excited, too. Gosh, sex is funny! The nuttiest things can turn you on.
“Anyhow, there I was over her lap, feeling like I was about eight years old and she was my mom. I sort of liked that feeling. My bottom was stinging like mad. I thought she'd probably paddle me some more, and I didn't know whether or not I could stand it, but I decided that I'd just have to.
“Instead, something else happened. I felt her very gently rubbing salve over my flesh back there, cool, soothing salve, and then she started cooing to me real gentle, as if she hadn't paddled me at all, but that it had been some other mean and brutal woman, and she was a very gentle, kind, and loving big sister.
“'Poor little Karen,' she whispered over and over again. 'Poor baby, sweet baby. Oh, I love you so much… I'll take away all the sting and hurt.'
“That was wonderful. I liked it more than I did the paddling, although I had to admit that the two went together, and that this wouldn't be half as nice if there wasn't the paddling first. Gradually my cheeks cooled down and the sting and burn subsided.
“I thought that would probably be all to this little episode, but something else happened. I felt something hard and thick push between my buttocks and press against my anus. I gasped when it suddenly slid in, and when I looked back to see what she was doing to me I saw that she was pushing the nozzle of a douche syringe, one of those bulb deals, up my backside. It hurt a little, like the dildoe, but I was getting real used to that now. I think my sphincter muscles were relaxing more now. Anyway, the sensation was terrific. I pressed up with my bottom to help her get it in. Oh, how I wanted it in. And as she slid it up to the hilt she squeezed the bulb and squirted the water up my rectum. Oooooh, it was such a wonderful enema. I just came on the spot I was so excited. I kept moaning and moaning, begging her to push it in and give me more. She had a pan by the bed with soapy water in it, and after filling the syringe a second time she pushed it up me again and squeezed. That was more than I could stand and I came a second time. By then I had to go desperately.
“That evening, after we went to bed, Eileen made love to me again, just the same as the last time. She cuddled me in her arms, made me feel like a little kid in a way, and also like a very helpless and beautiful girl in the arms of a very strong man. She could make me feel one way or the other. She whispered in my ear in this sort of husky voice, kissed me, and let her tongue push between my teeth and into my mouth; she then started biting my breasts, just the nipples, and massaging them. Then she started in on me with the dildoe, rammed it up my backside, and I do mean rammed, and pumped me like fury. It hurt like blazes. I felt like she was ripping me apart.
“'Ow! Ohhhhhhhhhh. Ow! Owwwwwwwww!' I moaned. But I loved it. In fact, I liked it better when she was brutal with me than when she was gentle. I came twice.”
Frank Caprio's Female Homosexuality mentions situations resembling Karen's, although seldom with the anal component. The desire to be hurt is frequently encountered among submissive lesbians, and usually takes the form of flagellation. Karen, as noted, discovered a fondness for the latter, perhaps because it fulfilled the earlier desire when she witnessed another child being punished. In Karen's case, anal eroticism is combined with masochism and homosexuality. The latter impulses were aroused by the prostitute in London, the former by a spanking incident when she was very young.
Several reasons probably account for her anal-ism. In the Introduction, several of her anal experiences were noted; her submission to sodomy with her cousin, and the stimulus from enemas. Unquestionably, she is very sensitive in the anal zone. Her lack of interest in vaginal stimulus, indeed, her repugnance toward it, is interesting. Karen has reversed the usual attitudes. To most people, and women in particular, everything connected with the anus is repulsive and unpleasant. Normally speaking, there is disgust, especially in our culture, because the anus is associated with feces, unpleasant odors, and waste. To Karen, however, her anus is clean. She does not think of feces at all; as with nearly all anal erotics, there is no coprophilia. Instead, she is repelled by the vagina because of menstruation which disgusts her and also the normal secretions from the mucous membranes. Karen does not regard her vagina as a primary erogenous zone; indeed, to her, it is scarcely an erogenous zone at all.
What is most important, however, is Karen's homosexuality. During early puberty she was bisexual, a common enough feature in young girls. But her development was toward homosexuality rather than away from it. These tendencies were not conscious but subliminal. They recurred in dreams, which, in turn, triggered the desire for homosexual anal assault, and which led to the important episode in London when she submitted to anal penetration by the prostitute.
This incident, more pleasurable in reality than she had anticipated, confirmed her anal homosexuality and put her clearly in that camp. Previous experiences were experimental and were not necessarily deviate since it was not clear that she preferred them to genital heterosexual intercourse. The incident in London produced deviation. After it, she was no longer bisexual, which is really modified homosexuality, but entirely homosexual. She did not desire the attentions of men after that experience but wanted to assume the submissive role with a dominant woman.
Her homosexuality created problems. For one thing, it took some time for Karen to accept it, to identify herself as a homosexual without excessive pangs of guilt. She remained somewhat uncommitted on this score when she placed the ad. She tried to convince herself that her real motivation was loneliness, and she did not make her homosexual desires explicit. She continued to regard homosexuality as a shameful thing, even more so than her analism. Some of this is no doubt because homosexuality is the most common deviation and homosexuals are subject to considerable social disapproval whereas analism by itself is comparatively uncommon and receives little public attention. In her case, however, there were no religious or moral conflicts. Karen does not disapprove of sexual deviation, believes in permissiveness, and follows the approach of others in her generation who subscribe to the philosophy of Henry Miller's Tropic of Capricorn and moral individualism in the realm of sex. She believes that everybody should do their own thing. Since she held this position intellectually, it was easy for her to adjust to being a homosexual, and to admit this fact to herself without undue guilt feelings. Karen does not have a guilt complex.
The experiment with the ad proved very successful. Through it Karen was fortunate enough to find another girl who was both congenial and dominant. What was established, in consequence, was a kind of pair bond, an unofficial marriage. The two girls approached each other cautiously, as though they were man and woman, and, after suitable preliminaries, indulged in what amounts to sexual intercourse. The fact that the physical aspects of their sexual union became anal and involved the use of the dildoe and other instruments is really of very little importance. It was intercourse, and it involved love, the union of two persons physically and psychically.
According to Frederick Redlich and Daniel Freedman's Theory and Practice of Psychiatry, abnormal behavior can be classified into four broad categories: neurosis, psychosis, psychopathy, and deviation. Deviates are not necessarily neurotic, or, if they are, their neuroses might be based on very different grounds than their abnormal sex problems. Karen is an excellent example of this. She is an effective person, intelligent, competent, able to relate to other people, and quite capable of warmth in her affective life. She is really a fairly normal person who happens to be an anally erotic homosexual.
This raises an important point. Should a deviate necessarily be classified as abnormal? There is considerable disagreement on this score. Some authorities consider deviates in general, and homosexuals in-particular, to be sick and recommend therapy. There is a small but growing group, however, who question the use of the term “deviation” altogether and consider so-called “deviates” to be perfectly normal, well-functioning persons who have certain preferences and tastes in the sexual area which are not shared by the majority of people.
There is much to be said on both sides of this argument. On the one hand, because deviation is not socially acceptable, except among minority groups such as the youth counterculture, persons who deviate sexually are subject to disapproval, are obliged to be secretive, and are made to feel guilty on account of their deviation. On the other hand, it can be argued that it is society itself that is sick, as Fromm insists in his Sane Society, and it is perhaps even healthier for deviates to practice their perversions than to attempt to conform. Added to this argument is the fact that overpopulation is now a major world problem and that human procreation is no longer desirable, even in the more advanced Western nations. The deviate may be actually making a worthy contribution to the human race by the diversion of his sexuality into nonprocreative channels. One can even conceive of a future world in which the mores are reversed and in which heterosexual genital sex is deviant and homosexuality and other deviations normal. In such a situation secretiveness and fear of social disapproval would cause people now considered normal to behave neurotically.
Karen's is the kind of case that refutes absolutism in the realm of sexual behavior and mores. She is a deviant, but she is not a disturbed person, being like any normal but lonely person who suffered pangs of unfulfilled yearning until she found a mate. Having found a soul mate, she was then able to enter into a normal and happy lesbian marriage.
The one major problem here, however, is how long the marriage can be expected to last. Caprio notes the frequency of homosexual pair bonds, but also suggests that very few of these last more than a year. The record is not as good as in the case of common-law marriages between men and women, which frequently are unusually stable. Unless Karen is able to maintain a more or less permanent relationship, she may be in difficulty. Her middle and later years may be lonely. Also, as frequently occurs, her later years may be plagued with regrets and self-depreciation.
“I stayed with Eileen after that. I wish there was some way that two lesbians who love each other could marry, but, in a way, I guess, we did. We went down to a church and pledged our love to each other and made vows to each other. That's a kind of marriage, I guess. It's as much a marriage as people have who live common law with each other.
“We decided that I would quit my job and move in with Eileen, and that her apartment would be our home. Money was absolutely no problem, as I said, because Eileen has an independent income and doesn't have to work. She likes to work, though, and she is very keen on her career. I like to take care of a house and all that, so it was easy for us to decide that she would be sort of the 'man' of the house, bring in the bacon, make all the decisions about money and all that, while I'd take care of the apartment, do the shopping, and everything else that a regular wife does.
“That was really a good idea we had, and it works out fine. We both really like it. Karen hates housework and doesn't have to do anything, and the only reason I worked was because I had to and it's great to have all my time to organize myself. Also, living in one of these big high-rises in New York makes us completely independent. We like it that we don't know our neighbors and that stuff. No one pays any attention to us; we have our own life. We have friends, of course, mostly young mod types, longhairs and freaks from the Village. They know we're lesby, but that's cool with them. Our friends include both homos and straights.
“But it's our sex life that's really the gas. We both love it. Okay, here's an example of what happened one night. Eileen came home, and I could hardly wait because I was really up tight. I just wanted it in the worst way. She did, too, which was really cool. It's always best when both of us really want it.
“As soon as Eileen came in the door, I went into my bad little girl act. I confessed in this really penitent way that I had overdrawn my checking account at the bank because there was this hat I just couldn't resist.
“'You're a very very bad girl,' she snapped, 'and you're really going to get it now!'
“'No, no, please,' I whimpered. 'I won't do it again. I promise I won't. I'll be real good.'-“But she grabbed me, flung me across her lap, rolled up my skirt, pulled my panties down, and began to give me a real paddling. I squealed and wiggled, begged her to stop, but she kept right on paddling me until my bottom was burning red and it hurt so much I couldn't stand it anymore.
“'Okay, come with me,” she ordered, 'and keep your dress up.'
“She yanked me toward the bathroom. I knew that that would be the second act and had everything ready for it. She pushed me in, smacked me across the bare bottom one more time, and then ordered me to bend over.
“Now she strapped on the dildoe and I felt it working up my rear end. It was marvelous. I spread my legs wide apart and bent down so that my head was between my legs.
“'Please don't, please don't.' I kept yelling, although of course I wanted it in the worst way.
“She shoved the dildoe up me as hard as she could. It just ripped and tore, or at least that's the way it felt. I kept yelling 'Ow! Ow! Ow!' and she kept snarling at me to shut up and take it. I took it all right. It was just about killing me, but I took it. Then I felt myself coming. Oh, it was delicious, like always. I just kept moaning and groaning as she banged me, and I was sorry when it was over, but it had to be because I was starting to feel pretty sore back there and my buttocks were still stinging from the paddling.
“After it was over, we both lay down for a while on the bed and then showered and got into some fresh clothes. We both felt great after that, and I went out in the kitchen and started dinner. Neither of us mentioned a word about what we had just done, and just acted as if nothing had happened at all. It was that way most of the night, up until after the news and the beginning of the late show. Then we started necking on the couch. I let her fondle me all over, my breasts, and especially the nipples, my thighs, everything, and then we went to bed. Eileen stripped me naked, taking off my clothes, garment by garment, really slowly, and then made me kneel down on the bed. After that she shoved the dildoe up my rear end again, but this time she was very gentle and pumped back and forth very very gently. I don't like that quite as well as when she's brutal with me, but it's nice and comfortable. Both of us came again doing it that way.
“We don't have sex every night; only when both of us feel in the mood, or sometimes when one of us wants it real bad. Then, even if the other one doesn't, she puts up with it. I'm the one who wants it the most.
“The funny thing, though, is that we do these crazy things, things where we're both stark naked and where she is doing very intimate things to me, but neither of us ever talk about it much. It isn't because the subject is uninteresting, it's just because both of us are really very shy. I know that doesn't make sense in view of what I just said about what we did and what we do. But it's true. We both like sex a lot, our kind of sex, and we do the darndest things; but just try talking about it and we both start to sort of blush and get tongue-tied. I don't think it's because we feel ashamed of what we do. We can talk about sex in an intellectual sort of way and both of us are very strong on women's lib and all that, and we both believe in the permissive society, and that everybody should do his own thing. But if we get on to what we do personally, with each other, it's different. We just can't discuss it.
“I don't think there's anything wrong with what Eileen and I do together, but something else happened last year, and I'm not so sure about that. It's kind of hard to talk about, but here goes.
“Eileen and I had been living together for about a year and a half when this letter came for her.
“'It's from my brother Chuck,' she said.
“He lives out on the Coast, he and his wife and Sheila, their daughter, who was around twelve then. Maybe she was a little older. I don't know much about kids and how old they are from how they look.
“'Chuck and Alicia, that's his wife, are going over to Japan on sort of a second honeymoon,' Eileen said, 'and they want to know if Sheila can stay with us for a couple of months this summer.'
“I was against it immediately. There's one thing that is sort of queer about me-well, one thing among a lot of queer things. I don't like kids. Eileen does, sort of. But I detest the monsters. I enjoyed being a kid, but I don't like the whole parenthood bit. Anyway, I was appalled, and the first thing I said was 'no way.' But I could see that Eileen was a little disappointed, so I quickly added, 'Oh, sure, it's okay.'
“Eileen wasn't going to send the invitation at first, but I coaxed her into it because I knew she wanted it. It made me a little jealous. I think that's part of the trouble. I'm really an awfully possessive bitch. I just want Eileen all to myself, and it sort of bugged me that there were these other people around cluttering up her life. But I knew that was selfish and stupid, so I did more than go along with the idea. I promoted it. Finally, I convinced Eileen that I wasn't being a martyr, which, of course, I really was, and she wrote to her brother and said we'd love to have Sheila stay with us.
“I had to pick Sheila up at the airport. She was a quiet little kid with long brown curls and a pretty, pert little face. She looked just a little like Eileen, her nose and mouth, that is, and it gave me sort of an idea what Eileen might have looked like at that age. She wears glasses, but in her case they make her look even prettier.
“It was sort of hard getting anything out of her. She's a very shy kid, you know, withdrawn. I asked her about her trip on the plane and all that stuff and she just answered in monosyllables, so after a while I just gave up and we rode to the high rise from the air terminal in silence.
“I thought she'd probably brighten up a bit when Eileen came home, but she was just about as quiet with her as with me. Both of us, in fact, began to wonder if it was such a good idea to have her, and I was really wondering what the heck I was going to do with her all day. I was going to be the one stuck with her most of the time.
“But that didn't turn out to be as bad a deal as I thought. Sheila was a pretty easygoing little thing, pretty amenable to almost anything going on, and no trouble. I took her to the Bronx Zoo and the Lincoln Center. Like Eileen, she's pretty artistic and could spend hours just sketching. We sat quite a bit over at Riverside Park. I watched the ships cruise up the Hudson, while Sheila sketched in charcoal. She was pretty good. Actually, I found I kind of liked having her around because she was company, and I was alone most of the day, and it was sort of fun showing her New York and all that.
“In the evening, back in the apartment, Eileen and I would be relaxing in the armchair and davenport while Sheila sprawled out on the rug on her stomach, chin cupped in her hands, watching TV. She wore shorts quite a bit, and I found myself studying her very round little rump, and wondering what her buttocks were like bare, and gazing at her nicely contoured calves and thighs.
“That kept happening evening after evening, and I found myself getting more and more aroused sexually by Sheila. Part of it was her shapely little figure, but a lot of it was because her flesh was so young and fresh, so soft and sleek. Girls are prettiest, I think, when they're very young-Sheila's age or a little older. I also kept having these fantasies, too, about Sheila. I kept wondering if she'd ever had an enema and what it would be like to give her one, and what it would be like to watch her being pumped up her bottom with the dildoe. I didn't want to do any of that stuff myself. I just wanted to watch while Eileen did it. That was what my fantasies were all about.
“I used to get mad at myself for having these fantasies. She's just a kid, after all, I told myself. What you and Eileen do together is one thing, but it's wrong, very very wrong to even think about doing anything to a little kid.
“But the more I thought about how wrong it was, and scolded myself, and tried to keep from thinking about Sheila, the more I thought about her. It was different from what I thought about Eileen. That was love. What I thought about Sheila was pure unadulterated flesh-pot style sex, crude, perverted, and wicked.
“I wondered what Eileen thought about Sheila, but, although I sometimes thought I caught her looking at her, too, she never in the least way hinted. We went on with our usual fanny-banging in the privacy of our bedroom, but now, when Eileen was shoving the dildoe up me, I kept imagining that it was Sheila who was getting it, and that I was watching and feeling it both at the same time.
“Then, during the really hot part of August, and when Sheila had only a couple of weeks before she flew home to L.A., the kid got sick. We drove out to Long Island this one Saturday and stopped in one of those seafood places. We all had lobster and Sheila had clams as an appetizer, Eileen and I had shrimp cocktails. Anyway, Sheila swallowed one of the clams and suddenly gagged and made an awful face.
“'What's the matter, cherub?' said Eileen brightly. 'Go down the wrong way?'
“'No, it tasted awful-rotten.'
“Sheila was fussy about food and Eileen and I just laughed at her and told her to stop being so silly.
“But Sheila wasn't being silly. The clams had gone off and the next morning she woke up with very severe cramps. She was in agony.
“Eileen and I got scared, of course, and called a doctor. They don't make house calls anymore, of course, and it was Sunday besides. We had to bundle Sheila up in a taxi and take her over to the clinic.
“'Oh, it's a bit of food poisoning,' the doctor said when we told him about the clams. He wrote out a prescription. 'And,' he added, 'it might not be a bad idea to give her an enema.'
“I just about jumped out of my seat when he said that, and, glancing out of the corner of my eye at Eileen, I could see that the whole idea was affecting her, too, though not in any way that anybody could tell except somebody who knew her as well as I do. Poor Sheila, meantime, just turned several shades of pink and white, alternately.
“Eileen stopped off at a pharmacy to make the necessary purchases and I went on up to the apartment with the miserable little Sheila. She was utterly appalled, but I was just foaming with excitement inside, and I could tell, from the way she was acting, that Eileen was, too.
“'You're not going to give me an enema,' Sheila announced defiantly as soon as we were safely within the privacy of the apartment.
“'Well, hon, you heard the doctor.'
“'I don't care,' she snapped peevishly. 'I won't take it. I just won't. If I have to take a laxative, I'll do that, although I hate it, but I won't take an enema. I hate enemas.'
“'Have you ever had an enema?' I asked, and, to my enormous delight, she stared demurely down at the carpet and murmured, 'Yes.'
“'Well, what bothers you about it?' I asked, drawing her to the davenport with me.
“'Everything,' she retorted in this sulky voice. 'I hate everything about the darned things. It's humiliating; it hurts, and it makes you sick. Mom pulled it on me a couple of times, and I hated it. She promised me she'd never do that to me again.'
“'Did she hurt you?'
“'Yes.'
“'Sheila, Eileen and I won't hurt you. We promise.'
“'I don't believe it.'
“'Please, Sheila…
“'Can't we forget about the whole thing? I'm embarrassed just thinking about it.'
“'Oh, honey, it's really no different than letting somebody see your face and putting a thermometer in your mouth.'
“'It's different,' she snapped.
“Eileen arrived with the brown package. Sheila stared at it balefully.
“'Poor Sheila,' I said, 'she's sort of up tight.'
“'What's the matter, honey?' said Eileen in a very soothing voice. 'It won't be so bad, and you'll feel much better afterwards.'
“Eileen went into the bathroom to fix the injection, and I tried to cope with a pouting, sulky Sheila. She was a frightfully modest little thing, very straight and old-fashioned, and if she had had any idea how much delight Eileen and I were taking in this whole drama, she would have just died.
“With a great deal of coaxing, promises to be gentle, and not to look any more than we had to, just absolutely had to, Sheila finally dropped her defenses and let me lead her into the bathroom. She walked slowly, and with great dignity, as if she was going into the death chamber to be executed. She stared at the swollen fountain syringe with horror, both hands protectively behind her back.
“'Pull your dress up, darling,' Eileen murmured, handing me the bag to hold. She took the tube. Attached to the regular black nozzle was a soft rubber colon tube, maybe about a foot and a half long. It was gleaming with vaseline. Eileen held the tube between her fingers. We glanced at each other and grinned slightly. We both knew that the other was enjoying Sheila's ordeal enormously.
“Very reluctantly, and blushing furiously, Sheila crumpled her navy-blue skirt high above her hips, and, with great reluctance, took down her pink panties. Eileen and I stared at her little bare bottom with fascination, taking in every detail. Her buttocks were very soft and round, and they pressed tightly together. The skin looked as smooth as silk. She was beautiful, and I was just beside myself with excitement and anticipation. The very fact that Sheila was so obviously embarrassed and disconcerted added to the enjoyment of the whole thing.
“'Bend down, honey,' Eileen whispered in a froggy voice.
“Without replying, and with her face turned away from us, Sheila obediently did as she was told.
“'Way down, dear, bend way down.'
“Sheila did, and the crack between her buttocks widened. We could, of course, have given her the enema in bed, which is what you're supposed to do, or lying on her side on the floor, but giving it to her bending over seemed much more erotic to us.
“Very slowly and very very gently, Eileen inserted the tube. She separated the girl's buttocks with her thumb and forefinger, and, by peering intently, I could just make out her very tight little anus. It was just gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous when the tube snaked between her buttocks and slid in. I don't think there's anything as beautiful as a very young girl being given an enema, a long tube disappearing up between her bare buttocks. I almost came, I was so excited. I wanted to be Sheila getting it and me watching it all at the same time.
“'Now, does that hurt?' Eileen asked.
“'No, it's all right,' Sheila answered in a very little voice.
“Very slowly, and very gently, Eileen now began to slide the tube up into the girl's rectum. It slithered in very easily. Sheila made no response, but continued to bend, accommodating, clutching her skirt high. I glanced at her face to see what effect it was having on her, but she was completely impassive. Eileen slid the tube in further. The girl's cheeks were so creamy white and round, and the dark red tube sliding up between them looked unbelievably gorgeous. I could tell from the look on Eileen's face that she was on the verge of orgasm, just like me. I was longing to know if Sheila was enjoying it, and wishing that she was.
“Eileen pushed the foot-and-a-half of colon tube up Sheila and then had her lie down on the green rug on the bathroom floor, curled with her knees up almost to her chin. I continued to hold the bag with the tube running down from it and into Sheila. It was sort of like filling a gas tank in the car at the filling station, and I can't go to a garage now, or see gas pumps, without feeling sort of erotic.
“The little girl was very calm and patient as she took the enema. She just lay there with her eyes closed and her lips slightly parted. None of us said a word. The water drained out of the bag and, sooner than Eileen or I wished, it was flat and empty. I thought about the tube and water up Sheila, how it probably felt, and had a terrific orgasm, which I managed, however, to completely conceal.
“'I don't think I can hold anymore,' Sheila finally said.
“'It's all finished, baby,' Eileen answered and pulled out the tube.
“After it was all over, we put Sheila to bed for a while to rest, and then, when she was feeling better, we all went out to a restaurant for dinner and a show at Rockefeller Center. None of us made the slightest mention of the enema. That night, however, Eileen really banged me up the backside with the dildoe and we both had terrific orgasms. Even so, and even though I was really fantasizing and reliving the whole thing, I never breathed a word about it to Eileen, and she never said anything either. Two weeks later, Sheila was put on the plane for the coast, and that was that.”
Karen's case is illustrative of the kind of situation in which deviate sexual activity occurs within a fairly rigid moral structure. There is anything but promiscuity here. Instead, we find that the two young women enjoy a “conjugal” relationship in which the same rules of discretion, decency, and loyalty apply as in a heterosexual marriage situation. It would have been easy for them to have exploited Sheila, especially in view of the exceptional opportunity which her illness presented them with. Although the enema which they gave Sheila was to Karen a wholly erotic experience, she restrained herself, as did Eileen. The enema was administered correctly and without any overt sexual advances on the part of either girl, even though both were highly stimulated by it.
What this illustrates is the fact that sex deviates are not necessarily less moral than normal people. They do not necessarily insist on a different code, but apply to themselves the same restraints and considerations of responsibility that apply to others. This is not to say that deviation is an ideal situation, or to agree with Andre Gide's praise of pederasty as a preferable form of sexuality. All deviations are regressive and, for that reason alone, less than desirable. Karen's case does show, however, that deviates can and do live quite normal and ethical lives, that they are often unselfish and sensitive to others.